


Anything But Empty

by ZoeBug



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, RivaMika Week, RivaMika Week 2014, Seven Deadly Sins, Sexual Content, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for RivaMikaWeek - Day 4 - The Seven Deadly Sins</p><p>They don't sin to feel good - they sin to feel something</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything But Empty

**Author's Note:**

> RivaMikaWeek 2014  
> Day 4 - The Seven Deadly Sins
> 
> A short drabble for each sin. They are not connected - in some they've gotten together, in some they haven't, in some they won't etc. 
> 
> Please enjoy, I think this prompt was my favorite to write for of the whole week :)

 There is now a podficced/recorded version of this fic if you'd like to listen to it read aloud.

You can find that [here](http://www.mediafire.com/file/j17sp99i9utdnf3/%5BSNK%5D_Anything_But_Empty.mp3)

 

* * *

 

 

 

" _If it were possible to have a life absolutely free from every feeling of sin, what a terrifying vacuum it would be._ "

\- Cesare Pavese

 

**1\. Lust**

"Fuck, I need you so bad," he growls into her collarbone, his fingers cutting sharply into the flesh of her hip, sure to blossom into bruises by morning.

Her teeth bite into his lower lip and he tastes the coppery tang of blood and the twinge of pain shoots through him, making him shudder and thrust his hips into hers.

She hisses through clenched teeth - whether in pain, or pleasure, or both, he can't really be sure - when his fingers slip inside her and she mutters something about how cold his hands are, always are.

He tells her to shut up, and she does.

They are a flurry of grasping hands and heated skin and there is nothing sweet or gentle about them. They are wolves, starving with sharpened teeth as they tear into each other.

"Make me feel something, make me feel something..." The gasps pour from her lips as he fucks into her hard, the bed rattling beneath them, his breath coming in sharp huffs through his nose, her fingernails cutting crescents into the already present lattice of scarring on his back.

"Fuck," he gasps, the numbing feeling of her body clouding out everything, "Shit, you feel like home."

He doesn't think she hears him as he fucks the nightmares from her.

They finish, Mikasa on top of him, shuddering, her voice hoarse and thin with her nails raking trails of red into his chest before she collapses to one side of him, a mess of sweaty limbs and damp sheets in the darkness.

He lays still for a moment, listening to her breathing deepen and slow, and realizes she's fallen asleep beside him. Without cleaning himself up a bit, he won't be able to do the same, so he makes a quick trip to the bathroom before collapsing back on the bed following her into unconsciousness.

Maybe, after all of that, neither of them will wake up screaming tonight.

 

**2\. Gluttony**

He's lost count of how many drinks he's had now. Too many for his small stature, that's for sure. But his mind is foggy and slow as he reaches for one of the few bottles with liquid remaining in them and pulls it to his lips, a few of the empty bottles strewn about his desk clattering to their sides in the process.

His brain is full of cotton, soft and warm, that muffles the screams echoing through it.

He can't think about the percentage of his paycheck he spent on the collection of bottles around him, now mostly empty - can only think about the dark shadows creeping from the normally sealed corners of his mind this evening as darkness swallowed the sky and left him alone once more.

Reaching for another bottle, he barely registers any burn at all, his hands feeling heavy and clumsy as he sets it down after a long swig. It lands on an uneven surface and he slurs a swear as it topples over, spilling its measly remaining contents over the edge of his desk onto the floor.

Sliding hazy eyes back from the bottle, he tries to make sense of what he'd tried to place it on.

Patches, a dozen or more, spread across his desk in a fanning arc of white and blue dotted with red, swirling together in a spiral of guilt and grief and self-loathing.

He wipes his mouth roughly on his uniform sleeve and reaches for another bottle.

Another drink. Another drink, another, and another, and another because he doesn't care as long as it drowns out the aching numbness, another and another and another until there is nothing but fog and the sound of someone crying and then the creak of a door and footsteps and cool, slender fingers brushing the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead and the tear tracks from his cheeks.

"I'm here now. It's okay."

 

**3\. Greed**

It's never enough.

Light caresses as he adjusts her position in training, pregnant glances from across the dining hall, heated words as he presses her against a wall in a deserted hallway...but other than that, she gets nothing from him.

With a man like Levi, she knows she's lucky to have gotten any piece of him, however small. With a man like him, who rarely gives any of himself to anyone, she should be more than happy to have any of this.

But she's not. And she wants more.

She wants to kiss him in the daylight of the training course, she wants to hold his hand in the hallways, wants to mark him with bites he won't hide beneath that tightly tied cravat. She wants the openness of a smile, the playfulness of a laugh. She wants a place in his life, for this thing between them to have a proper name. She wants legal papers and symbolic gestures. She wants happiness passed back and forth between them without shame or guilt or impropriety coloring their every interaction.

She needs it like water or air, needs all of him because anything less tears her apart day by day as she is given scraps and crumbs of him and she hates it because it is just one more thing in this world she doesn't fully have.

And she wants it all.

 

**4\. Sloth**

She wakes to the sound of him pulling on a shirt in the dim light of the beginnings of dawn filtering through his quarters' window.

"Morning," she says groggily, sleep still clogging her throat. He stills, looking over at her.

"I have a meeting in fifteen minutes with the other officers." His hands begin once again to work at the buttons of his shirt.

"Oh."

"You should probably start getting dressed too. Don't you have morning training soon?"

"Yes," she replies, leaning back against the pillows, holding the sheet up against her bare chest. "But I'm not sure if I want to go. I'm quite tired."

He stills again, this time, hands halfway through pulling white trousers up his legs.

"And you were just going to lounge around in my room while I was gone?"

"Well, preferably, I would have some company."

Even from across the room she can see the dark circles under his eyes.

"You want me to skip?"

She doesn't reply right away, only draws one leg up, bent, under the sheets and tilts her head at the empty spot on the bed next to her.

"Your bed's quite comfortable," is all she says in response.

For a moment, he just looks over to her, his eyes darting from her eyes, to her hand where it clasps the sheet to her breastbone, to the outline of her naked form beneath the covers, to the spot next to her, and finally to her eyes again.

"Meeting's more a formality anyway," he mutters, yanking the pants back down his legs and unbuttoning his shirt, "Never get anything fucking done. Hanji skips all the time anyway, fucking shitty glasses."

He continues, excuses cascading from his lips, as he lays the now folded shirt back on the chair by his desk and strides across the room to climb back into the bed beside her.

 

**5\. Wrath**

It had just been another of Jean and Eren's petty arguments sprung out of testosterone and fear of their next mission, but for some reason - maybe the summer heat, maybe something else - Jean's temper had flared beyond the usual and before she could blink, Eren was knocked backwards to the floor, blood trickling from the corner of his lips and his nose.

And then, in a haze of red, she had Jean pinned to the wall by his neck, her forearm pressing dangerously into his throat, eyes dark, hissing:

"You got a death wish today, Kirstein?"

"M-Mikasa, I-"

"Shut up."

Her voice was so low she didn't even recognize it as her own, didn't realize her fist was raised in the air and flying towards Jean until it had happened, and the anger and helplessness and futility of everything came forth like a dam breaking and she was smashing her knuckles into Jean's jaw and nose and once, a knee in the pliant flesh of his stomach, causing him to fall to his knees.

"Don't you ever," her words were punctuated by sickening cracks and Jean's broken gasps of " _stop.._ " and Eren's "Mikasa, I'm fine!" failing to permeate the jittery tide in her mind, "lay a finger on Eren again, you piece of shit. I will kill you."

Icy hot adrenaline surging through her body, a static roar in her ears, her nerves on fire, she continued, her voice raising in volume and pitch until she is screaming.

"I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll _kill you!!_ "

"ACKERMAN!"

A booming voice and strong hands yanking at her shoulders, dragging her away, finally cause her arms to still and fall to her sides, her chest heaving.

"Ackerman," she was pushed against the wall, giving her something solid against her back as well as the hands still on her shoulders. "Look at me, Mikasa. Deep breaths."

"Corporal...?" Breathy and uncertain, her voice sounds far away as her eyes focus slowly on the man in front of her.

"You're ok. You're all right. Just breathe."

She obeys, feeling with each inhale and exhale that edgy acidity drain from her limbs, leaving a hollow ache.

"Are you here now?" He asks. She just nods and he turns his head towards Jean who is still on the floor.

"Kirstein, go to the infirmary and make sure nothing's broken."

"B-But, Sir-"

"Go!" He jerks his head at the door. "Jaeger, make sure he gets there in one piece."

After flicking his eyes from Mikasa to Levi and then back, Eren reluctantly helps Jean to his feet and they leave, Jean leaning on Eren's shoulders.

He turns his gaze back to her.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm sorry, Sir. I shouldn't have- I...I don't know what came over me."

"I do." His eyes are dark as they study her. "You're scared and restless and you feel like nothing you do is ever enough and you just need to wreck something. I understand. I really do." She opens her mouth - either in astonishment, or to reply, but he continues on. "But I can't allow you to attack the other, Cadets, understood?"

"Y-yes, Sir."

He backs up, withdrawing his hands.

"Good." He turns to leave and is halfway out the door when she speaks up, voice wavering slightly.

"Sir..." he pauses in the doorway, back to her. "If it happens again, what should I do? I-" she stares down at her hands, "I don't want to hurt anyone."

"If it happens again," he says without turning to her, "come find me and I'll help you again."

And with that, he disappears out into the hallway, leaving her alone.

 

**6\. Envy**

He wants her.

God, he wants her.

But she is Eren's and fuck if he doesn't know that all too well.

With ever familiar touch, with every smile, with every softening of expression toward Eren like dart in Levi's chest he fucking knows.

Every time he even _looks_ at her, he sees that scarf - a splash of red like an open wound around her neck - and is reminded that she will always belong to someone else.

He has come into her life too late and with too little to offer and she doesn't have room in her life for another person she can't bear to lose. Because she has Eren and that is all she will ever truly need.

She is strong and powerful and unswerving in her purpose and that makes him ache in both body and heart, alone in the shadows at night in his chambers, alone yet again.

He wants to hate Eren for how it all ended up, but he can't. He wants to hate Mikasa for how it all ended up, but he can't.

So wanting her with a bitter single-mindedness is easier and far less painful than simply hating himself.

 

**7\. Pride**

Levi often oversees Manuever Gear training, which is natural as he is indisputably the best with using Gear. And he knows it. The gear is his domain and in with the feel of leather straps cutting into his muscles as he moves, the weight of the blade sheathes and gas canisters resting evenly on his hips, he feels unstoppable.

That is, until Mikasa Ackerman joins the Survey Corps.

"I'll be showing you brats the uncomplicated form of the swing today," he speaks to them in a lazy but authoritative tone, "since none of you could pull off the more complex style."

He hears a whisper from the back of the crowd of cadets and his eyebrows raise, his eyes locking on the black haired girl it had come from.

"Got something to say, Ackerman?"

She lifts her gaze to meet his and in it, he can see a defiance and arrogance like licking flames behind her eyes.

"I said," she retorts, "Are you sure about that, Sir?"

His eyebrows rise even higher, shocked by her tenacity.

"You're saying you're better than me at Maneuvering, is that it, Cadet?"

Her back straightens.

"What if I am, Sir?"

He scoffs, looking the girl up and down.

"I doubt it. And either way, talking back to your Commanding Officer is highly disrespectful. 20 extra laps on the course when we're finished here, Ackerman, got it?"

"Yes, Sir," she grinds out through gritted teeth. He sees Armin Artlert places a subtle, calming hand on her arm.

"Good. You'd do well to remember your place in the future, Cadet. I've been wearing this gear since before you could walk - both in and out of uniform. I taught myself to balance, fire, and swing in it, which is more than I can say for you." He turns away from the group of cadets, staring out at the obstacle training course. "I have no doubt you are still significantly below me in skill level. However, if you'd like to get your ass handed to you _concretely_ ," he turns his head to meet her gaze, fiery and seething, over his shoulder, "I'd be more than happy to indulge you."

Her voice is low and fierce when she replies.

"Are you sure you're up for it, Sir?"

He makes a surprised and approving little scoffing noise in the back of his throat before turning his back once again.

 "Enough. Now, get your asses out onto the course and warm up before I kick you off this platform."

"Yes, Sir!" The chorus sounds across the open space followed by a cacophony of zipping wires and hooks connecting with their targets.

Last to leave the starting platform, Mikasa, only a few inches from him now, bends her knees, positioned to jump, fires her wires to a pole a ways off.

"You're on, Sir."

And she is pulled from beside him, arcing off onto the course.

**Author's Note:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)
> 
> (And hope it was ok I took a different direction with gluttony. As someone recovering from an eating disorder writing about overeating would have triggered me badly but I really wanted to hit all the sins so I did something I would be more comfortable with but still portrayed the self-destructive, unhealthy behaviors and ideations in that context that I was aiming to capture)


End file.
